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North Korean rocket Unha-3, carrying the satellite Kwangmyongsong-3, lifting off from the launching pad in Cholsan county, North Pyongan province. — AFP/Getty

UNITED NATIONS. — North Korea built the Unha-3 rocket, one of the most important missiles in its arsenal, using British, American and South Korean components, United Nations experts have concluded. The missile also contains off-the-shelf parts from Switzerland and China, as well as parts of Russian Scud missiles.

The majority of the parts, the UN said, did not contravene sanctions and their use “shows the ability of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) to assemble complex systems with globally sourced components”.

The Unha-3, a three-stage missile which was first unveiled when it was used to launch a satellite into space in December 2012, is the closest that North Korea has come to developing a missile which can deliver a nuclear warhead to the west coast of America.

The analysis from the United Nations, released earlier this month, came just before North Korea launched two medium-range Rodong ballistic missiles into the sea on Tuesday.

It was the first firing of Rodong missiles in four years and comes in the annual period of tension on the Korean peninsula as United States and South Korea prepare to stage war games.

The Rodong missile was a precursor to the Unha-3.
Experts said the list of parts they had recovered from the Unha-3 comprised of relatively easy-to-obtain computer components, including an American video decoder and temperature and pressure sensors from the UK.

The panel noted that the South Korean parts were manufactured between 2003 and 2010, but could not be traced back to individual companies due to “insufficient identifiers”.

Analysts said that adding these easily available dual-use components to the sanctions list would be problematic.
“The current list of banned military and dual-use goods is already comprehensive.

“Adding more readily available materials to it would both risk infringing on legitimate non-military end-uses and be extremely difficult for member states to effectively implement,” said Lawrence Dermody, an analyst specialising in illicit trafficking at SIPRI.

Even though the parts did not contravene sanctions, North Korea still used third parties to buy them from resellers. The penalties for aiding the North Korean missile programme are particularly severe in the US.

“Directly or indirectly exporting any ‘arms or related material’ or any component meant for the use in North Korea’s missile programs comes with a prison term of 20 years and a fine of US$1 million plus civil penalties,” said Joshua Stanton, a North Korea sanctions expert.

The UN report did not provide any names or addresses for the companies that manufactured the components, but said the companies had not sold the parts directly.

The basic nature of many of the parts also raises questions about North Korea’s own manufacturing capability.
“North Korea’s use of foreign components is much like its use of the global financial system, or its dependence on foreign currency to sustain its domestic control and its weapons of mass destruction programmes.

“Contrary to common perceptions, the regime in Pyongyang is not isolated from the world but dependent on carefully managed connections to it,” said Stanton.

Other experts disagreed, however, saying that sourcing cheap components from abroad didn’t necessarily rule out the possibility of the DPRK’s ability to produce them, but instead pointed towards financial constraints.

Only two of the recovered items were potentially in breach of UN sanctions.
The UN’s experts reported that the radial ball bearings used in the Unha-3’s rocket met four specific criteria laid out in the sanctions list “related to tolerance, inner and outer diameters and width”, while some of the “umbilical and inter-stage electrical connectors are now prohibited for import and export”.

The panel could not ascertain however exactly when the ball bearings were produced, concluding that they might have been manufactured in the 1980s and sourced from the former Soviet Union. — The Telegraph.